All Alabama in Title Game

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — They called the football game played here Monday night a national championship, a title clash for the ages, epic, monumental, historic.

Then Notre Dame kicked the ball off.

Then Alabama drove down the field, unimpeded, as if out for a nighttime stroll. It all went downhill from there, for Notre Dame and for those interested in the most overhyped college football game in years. Instead, this national championship ended early, almost immediately, in a flurry of Alabama touchdowns that allowed the Crimson Tide to seize their third title in four seasons, 42-14, with all the ease predicted by the oddsmakers, sapping this game of all competitiveness or drama.

This was “Rudy,” the sequel, after he stumbled onto Elm Street.

Alabama jumped to a 14-0 lead after one quarter and opened up a 28-0 advantage by the half, as Notre Dame fans streamed for the exits and the beer lines. Afterward, Alabama fans held newspapers with the headline “BAMA! AGAIN!” and chanted “S!E!C!”, as defensive lineman Quinton Dial grabbed the school flag from a cheerleader and sprinted across the end zone.

The game itself brought to mind a famous quote from Mike Tyson. Everybody has a plan, he said — until getting punched in the face. On Monday, Alabama bludgeoned Notre Dame, repeatedly. It controlled the game with both lines, on offense and defense, putting on a clinic in power football. It ran all over a defense known for its ability to stop the run. Alabama (13-1) so dominated that it reminded sports fans that N.B.A. games were also available for viewing Monday night, and that Notre Dame’s best chance for a national title is now in women’s basketball.

This only strengthened the claim few at Alabama dared to make before Monday night: that Coach Nick Saban, who flopped in two forgettable seasons on this very field at Sun Life Stadium as coach of the Miami Dolphins, has created a college football dynasty. This was his fourth national championship and third since he left the Dolphins to return to college football at Alabama. One could easily argue it was also his most impressive.

In the locker room, surrounded by the teammates in gray championship hats and T-shirts, linebacker Nico Johnson blurted out words that only a senior could. For the underclassmen, Saban continued to ban the d-word. “OK, I can say it now,” Johnson said. “This is a dynasty.”

Only two other college coaches can claim at least four titles. One is John McKay of Southern California. The other is Paul Bryant, the coach known as Bear who made Alabama football famous.

Now there is Saban, a coach who must contend with fewer scholarships than afforded coaches from the Bryant era and who faces far stiffer competition. Yet despite those limitations, Saban runs a program that resembles a 33rd N.F.L. team as closely as a college football powerhouse. This season, despite a close loss to Texas A&M, only reinforced that notion.

Saban spent all of last week scoffing at any comparison between himself and Bryant, and this from a man with a 9-foot-tall statue of himself outside his office. Those close to him knew what another championship meant. “There’s no question,” said Kirby Smart, his defensive coordinator. “There’s no question he is driven to be the greatest coach in the game.”

Monday was another step, for Saban’s legacy and for Alabama’s program and for the Southeastern Conference, from which a team secured the national championship for the seventh straight season. As “Sweet Home Alabama” predictably blasted from the stadium speakers — Roll! Tide! Roll! — Mike Slive, the conference commissioner dodged confetti and smiled a smile that seemed to stretch from here to South Beach.

“You don’t see something like this coming,” he said. “One can enjoy it. But one cannot anticipate it.”

The suspense this year ended almost immediately. Almost. Notre Dame (12-1) stuffed the Crimson Tide on their first play from scrimmage. On the next snap, quarterback A J McCarron found receiver Kevin Norwood for a 29-yard gain. Notre Dame compounded that with a face mask penalty, then compounded that with a defensive offsides. Its vaunted defense, led by linebacker Manti Te’o, was generally ineffective.

Running back Eddie Lacy finished off the drive with a 20-yard scamper into the end zone, his path largely unchallenged, his body largely untouched. It was the first time this season Notre Dame allowed a touchdown in the first quarter. The 82-yard drive was also the longest this year against the Fighting Irish.

The worst start Notre Dame could have imagined only worsened from that point. Officials ruled a completion incomplete that would have gone for a first down, and when the Irish appeared to recover a fumble on the ensuing punt, they were flagged for catching interference.

Alabama simply resumed its rush to judgment. McCarron continued to hand the ball to Lacy, who continued to plunge forward. The Crimson Tide mostly attacked the right side of Notre Dame’s defense, which looked like a matador, with Lacy playing the role of bull.

“The toughness of our team came out in the beginning,” defensive back Hunter Bush said. “We attacked them exactly as we wanted to.”

By the time Alabama scored its second touchdown, on a pass from McCarron to tight end Michael Williams, the Crimson Tide boasted a 123-8 advantage in total yardage. By the time Alabama scored its third touchdown, a T. J. Yeldon run on the first play of the second quarter, the Fighting Irish had 23 yards — and the Crimson Tide had 21 points.

The most pertinent news in the rest of the first half came when Alabama actually punted. Alabama wound up with two 100-yard rushers: Lacy had 140 yards on 20 carries, and Yeldon had 108 on 21. McCarron, meanwhile, played as if intent on earning a statue of his own. He threw four touchdown passes and said afterward that he would return for his senior season and the chance to win a third straight national championship.

“Our offense did an exceptional job,” Saban said, his face absent even a hint of emotion. While his players danced and hugged and shouted, Saban looked out at a mass of reporters and deadpanned, “I’m extremely happy.” They would have to take his word for it.

As the game approached, the hype ballooned so as to dominate the national conversation about sports, until this felt less like a national championship game and more like a history lesson. Here they stood: Notre Dame and Alabama, golden helmets against red elephants, storied tradition opposite storied tradition, football in the heartland versus football in the South.

If college football released an encyclopedia, these schools would occupy two of the larger volumes. Alabama claimed 14 national championships before Saturday; Notre Dame had 11. Alabama employed Bryant; Notre Dame had Knute Rockne, Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz.

“A couple of us were joking the other day that it’s ‘Rudy’ versus ‘Forrest Gump,’ ” said receiver Robby Toma, in reference to two movies made about these football programs.

Before Saturday, the most-watched college football game took place between Texas and Southern California, in 2006, and it averaged 35.6 million viewers. This contest was expected to challenge and ultimately trump that number, at least until they played it.

The assembled expected a game as old-school as its participants. Even in this era of spread offenses and fancy passing, Alabama and Notre Dame won with size more than speed. They won with linemen, with bulk, with two defenses ranked among the top five in the nation.

“It’s not about the crazy receiving numbers or passing yards or rushing yards,” Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly insisted. “This is about the big fellas, and this game will be decided unquestionably up front.”

Kelly was right, of course, but not in the way he wanted to be. His team did score in the third quarter and end the shutout. It will eventually celebrate a season that brought the return of Notre Dame to college football’s elite.

But not on Monday night. In this dud, Notre Dame flopped and Alabama triumphed and the SEC ruled again. The folks in Hollywood are unlikely to turn this season into any script, but Saban may get another statue anyway.

Alabama will be among the favorites for next season. And the season after that. And for as long as Saban is the coach. The former Alabama and N.F.L. running back Shaun Alexander said on the field after the game: “You know what makes this more exciting? I think next year’s team will be better than this year’s team.”

So how many championships can Saban win? “Who knows?” Johnson said. “How many years can he coach?”

Correction:Jan. 12, 2013

A picture caption in some editions on Tuesday with an article about Alabama’s 42-14 victory over Notre Dame in the Bowl Championship Series national title game misidentified the Alabama player shown intercepting a tipped pass in the third quarter. He is Ha’Sean Clinton-Dix, not Blake Sims.